Professional Visit Pass, Peninsular Malaysia
For short assignments where your employee stays on an overseas payroll and comes to Malaysia to do a defined piece of work.
The short answer
A Professional Visit Pass lets someone come and do a short professional or technical job in Malaysia while staying employed and paid by an overseas company. It is not an employment pass. Your Malaysian entity sponsors the visit, but it does not employ the person. Use it for secondment, installation, training and audit work. Do not use it to dress up what is really a Malaysian job, because that is what gets refused.
When is a Professional Visit Pass the right instrument?
- Installing, commissioning or servicing equipment supplied from abroad.
- Training staff at a Malaysian entity.
- A short intra-group secondment where the home employer keeps the person on payroll.
- Audit, inspection or technical advisory work.
What does an application need?
- A Malaysian sponsoring company that accepts responsibility for the visit.
- A contract or letter of appointment between the foreign employer and the Malaysian host.
- Evidence the applicant remains employed and paid by the foreign entity.
- Qualifications and experience supporting the technical nature of the assignment.
- A defined assignment period and scope.
What if the assignment is longer than a visit?
Where an assignment extends beyond what a visit pass supports, the options are an Employment Pass with the Malaysian entity, or an Employer of Record arrangement where the person is employed by a third party locally. Each has different cost and compliance consequences.
Sources
- Immigration Department of Malaysia Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia
- Expatriate Services Division portal Immigration Department of Malaysia
Tell us what you need
Describe your situation and we’ll tell you which pass fits it, what it costs and how long it takes.
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